How do you implement linux in your business?

[Roger Magana]

I can not agree with you more. I have studied accounting and do have it down to a large degree. I spent a lot of time when starting my business looking at all different kinds of accounting software. I figured because I was inexperienced in accounting I would get something that will basically hold my hand thru the daily chores. Thats why I settled on quickbooks. Its been a love hate relationship as they have made changes thru updates that have done stuff like delete my invoice designs and disallowing thunderbird email as an option - which they then put back. I guess a lot of people screamed at them. But overall, I am getting by with quickbooks. I used gnucash for a short period but because of my lack of knowledge at the time I found it a bit difficult.

Thanks for the post,

Yup. Use what suit you best, by all means.

 

[NJW]

I work from home and Debian is my daily workstation OS, also on the site-work laptop. Both with xfce and both have Windows VMs, just in case. The VMs are generally only started once a month to get updates.

Main desktop programs are Firefox, LibreOffice, Claws Mail, Hamster (time tracking), Dolibarr (ERP - server, but installed on localhost)

Headless Debian server, 2 TB RAID1 as file (samba), print (cups), backup (rsync, brandysnap, Clonezilla), media (Logitech Media Server) and web dev. (Apache, Caddy) server. None of these are exposed outside the LAN, but VPN access is available to me.

RPi as OpenVPN gateway for inbound connections when I'm on site, or need VPN web access from outside; RPi as one of the house music players.

Cube PC (Pegatron, Celeron) attached to the telly also runs Debian with xfce configured for '10 foot' interface, for streaming (Netflix, iPlayer, Youtube, ...) and local video and DVD playback.

I host a few websites and have ownCloud on a shared hosting plan (OVH France, running their custom Debian), which gives me ssh access and all the goodness that comes with it. ownCloud is used for file, calendar and contacts sharing, syncing with my workstation and Android phone.

There are no Windows machines here any more: the last was my other half's Windows 7 laptop, which is now Linux Mint – she asked for it to be installed when Windows 7 updates became a constant struggle. She was already using Chrome and LibreOffice, which covers the bulk of what she does, and it was a painless migration.

 

[Roger Magana]

I work from home and Debian is my daily workstation OS, also on the site-work laptop. Both with xfce and both have Windows VMs, just in case. The VMs are generally only started once a month to get updates.

Main desktop programs are Firefox, LibreOffice, Claws Mail, Hamster (time tracking), Dolibarr (ERP - server, but installed on localhost)

Headless Debian server, 2 TB RAID1 as file (samba), print (cups), backup (rsync, brandysnap, Clonezilla), media (Logitech Media Server) and web dev. (Apache, Caddy) server. None of these are exposed outside the LAN, but VPN access is available to me.

RPi as OpenVPN gateway for inbound connections when I'm on site, or need VPN web access from outside; RPi as one of the house music players.

Cube PC (Pegatron, Celeron) attached to the telly also runs Debian with xfce configured for '10 foot' interface, for streaming (Netflix, iPlayer, Youtube, ...) and local video and DVD playback.

I host a few websites and have ownCloud on a shared hosting plan (OVH France, running their custom Debian), which gives me ssh access and all the goodness that comes with it. ownCloud is used for file, calendar and contacts sharing, syncing with my workstation and Android phone.

There are no Windows machines here any more: the last was my other half's Windows 7 laptop, which is now Linux Mint – she asked for it to be installed when Windows 7 updates became a constant struggle. She was already using Chrome and LibreOffice, which covers the bulk of what she does, and it was a painless migration.

I think we got a winner. That's quite a list.

 

[coffee]

I work from home and Debian is my daily workstation OS, also on the site-work laptop. Both with xfce and both have Windows VMs, just in case. The VMs are generally only started once a month to get updates.

Main desktop programs are Firefox, LibreOffice, Claws Mail, Hamster (time tracking), Dolibarr (ERP - server, but installed on localhost)

Headless Debian server, 2 TB RAID1 as file (samba), print (cups), backup (rsync, brandysnap, Clonezilla), media (Logitech Media Server) and web dev. (Apache, Caddy) server. None of these are exposed outside the LAN, but VPN access is available to me.

RPi as OpenVPN gateway for inbound connections when I'm on site, or need VPN web access from outside; RPi as one of the house music players.

Cube PC (Pegatron, Celeron) attached to the telly also runs Debian with xfce configured for '10 foot' interface, for streaming (Netflix, iPlayer, Youtube, ...) and local video and DVD playback.

I host a few websites and have ownCloud on a shared hosting plan (OVH France, running their custom Debian), which gives me ssh access and all the goodness that comes with it. ownCloud is used for file, calendar and contacts sharing, syncing with my workstation and Android phone.

There are no Windows machines here any more: the last was my other half's Windows 7 laptop, which is now Linux Mint – she asked for it to be installed when Windows 7 updates became a constant struggle. She was already using Chrome and LibreOffice, which covers the bulk of what she does, and it was a painless migration.

 

[Mike McCall]

I've used various distros over the years but nothing in-depth. Linux has a way of making me feel like a total pinhead. For example, I'm currently attempting to install/configure OpenSUSE to use in my office downstairs. I initially struggled to get my networked printer to work properly, but I think I finally have that sorted though it took me a whole day. I have yet to be able to connect to my NAS (except for the web interface), and now it seems I've lost all connection LAN or Internet. Not that it matters much, but I do have a couple of certifications, one in networking, and I feel like I'm unable to accomplish the simplest of tasks in Linux. Time for a break.

 

[NJW]

I've used various distros over the years but nothing in-depth. Linux has a way of making me feel like a total pinhead.

A couple of observations:

• Pick a distro (or, at least, a genealogical line) and stick to it;
• Don't try to 'learn it' – use it and learn stuff as you need it.

I started with Slackware – it was free, on a set of floppies, from a magazine about 20 years ago (gulp) – and I stumbled in the dark for a month or so then gave up. Over the next few years I dallied with them all, mainstream and niche, but never got beyond 'novelty' installations.

Then Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake arrived with a buzz, arguably the first Linux release that a layman could just install and use. In those days, Canonical did little more than shave off the loose ends of Debian and make it look pretty, but the enormous community of noobs meant that it was now possible to ask the most basic question without being told to RTFM. Within a couple of months, I was using Linux regularly and by the end of the first year it was my main OS for social, domestic and pleasure use.

A year after Ubuntu 6.06 came Debian Etch, which had benefited greatly from the influence (and code contributions) of Ubuntu. I was now in a position to know enough to ask questions on the Debian forums without being shot down in flames, but most of the Ubuntu experience was directly transferable to Debian (the benefit of the genealogical line). On top of that, the Internet was awash with support resources by now, so Google became much more useful and in those days, Google still had a Linux search portal, which helped to filter the results.

Once you get up that first step, your understanding of the big picture improves considerably. Things still need to be learnt, but there's much more building on existing stuff, so the new stuff is more incremental than revolutionary. None of it is hard – no, really! – but it takes a bit of perseverance at the beginning. There has never been an easier time to get started: there is a multitude of giants' shoulders to stand on.

 

[Mike McCall]

A couple of observations:

• Pick a distro (or, at least, a genealogical line) and stick to it;
• Don't try to 'learn it' – use it and learn stuff as you need it.

I started with Slackware – it was free, on a set of floppies, from a magazine about 20 years ago (gulp) – and I stumbled in the dark for a month or so then gave up. Over the next few years I dallied with them all, mainstream and niche, but never got beyond 'novelty' installations.

Then Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake arrived with a buzz, arguably the first Linux release that a layman could just install and use. In those days, Canonical did little more than shave off the loose ends of Debian and make it look pretty, but the enormous community of noobs meant that it was now possible to ask the most basic question without being told to RTFM. Within a couple of months, I was using Linux regularly and by the end of the first year it was my main OS for social, domestic and pleasure use.

A year after Ubuntu 6.06 came Debian Etch, which had benefited greatly from the influence (and code contributions) of Ubuntu. I was now in a position to know enough to ask questions on the Debian forums without being shot down in flames, but most of the Ubuntu experience was directly transferable to Debian (the benefit of the genealogical line). On top of that, the Internet was awash with support resources by now, so Google became much more useful and in those days, Google still had a Linux search portal, which helped to filter the results.

Once you get up that first step, your understanding of the big picture improves considerably. Things still need to be learnt, but there's much more building on existing stuff, so the new stuff is more incremental than revolutionary. None of it is hard – no, really! – but it takes a bit of perseverance at the beginning. There has never been an easier time to get started: there is a multitude of giants' shoulders to stand on.

Thanks for the well thought reply. I remember conversing on one of the Usenet boards in the 90's with some Linux Developers who struggled to understand why people wanted a GUI at all. It really was difficult for them to wrap their head around the reality that the average computer end user just couldn't warm up to a terminal. That was a long time ago and things have greatly improved, sort of.

My frustrated post came from two-days of trying to accomplish what should be 3 simple tasks:

1. Connect to the internet.
2. Connect to a network printer.
3. Connect to my NAS.

Bonus: Connect Kontact to all my email accounts & Google calendar.

These are (and should be) simple to accomplish in either Windows or OS X, but took me 2-days to accomplish in OpenSUSE. I've long preferred KDE over Gnome, and have had some experience with SUSE as far back as 8.1, and I also like YaST2. I expected a learning curve to get some things done, but I didn't expect to spend 2-days figuring out how to accomplish those three things. Things in Linux aren't always easy and even the nomenclature isn't intuitive, which only further complicates things if one isn't immersed in a particular Linux sub-culture. My point isn't that I'm particularly well versed in using Linux, but that I shouldn't have to be to get basic things done.

Don't get me wrong, I like Linux, always have. I want to use it in my business for several reasons. Kontact is a valuable tool I plan to use in my office. LibreOffice is what I use currently on my other machines and store documents on the NAS. In my other machines (both Win & OS X) I can open the program and if the document I'm looking for isn't in the recent history, I can just tell it to open from someplace else (NAS) and everything is fine. In Linux, LibreOffice is unable to reach out to the NAS at all. I have to open Dolphin, go to the NAS, find the document, and open it from there. Why is it that after all these years this is even an issue? To find a fix for this (which I shouldn't have to do), I'll have to scour the net to find the right terminal commands to enable LibreOffice to connect to the NAS directly. These are the fiddly things that drive up the frustration and lower the confidence levels. Maybe I've become a grouchy old man who finds learning a chore. I hope not. Geez, I really hope not.

 

[coffee]

Thanks for the well thought reply. I remember conversing on one of the Usenet boards in the 90's with some Linux Developers who struggled to understand why people wanted a GUI at all. It really was difficult for them to wrap their head around the reality that the average computer end user just couldn't warm up to a terminal. That was a long time ago and things have greatly improved, sort of.

My frustrated post came from two-days of trying to accomplish what should be 3 simple tasks:

1. Connect to the internet.
2. Connect to a network printer.
3. Connect to my NAS.

Bonus: Connect Kontact to all my email accounts & Google calendar.

These are (and should be) simple to accomplish in either Windows or OS X, but took me 2-days to accomplish in OpenSUSE. I've long preferred KDE over Gnome, and have had some experience with SUSE as far back as 8.1, and I also like YaST2. I expected a learning curve to get some things done, but I didn't expect to spend 2-days figuring out how to accomplish those three things. Things in Linux aren't always easy and even the nomenclature isn't intuitive, which only further complicates things if one isn't immersed in a particular Linux sub-culture. My point isn't that I'm particularly well versed in using Linux, but that I shouldn't have to be to get basic things done.

Don't get me wrong, I like Linux, always have. I want to use it in my business for several reasons. Kontact is a valuable tool I plan to use in my office. LibreOffice is what I use currently on my other machines and store documents on the NAS. In my other machines (both Win & OS X) I can open the program and if the document I'm looking for isn't in the recent history, I can just tell it to open from someplace else (NAS) and everything is fine. In Linux, LibreOffice is unable to reach out to the NAS at all. I have to open Dolphin, go to the NAS, find the document, and open it from there. Why is it that after all these years this is even an issue? To find a fix for this (which I shouldn't have to do), I'll have to scour the net to find the right terminal commands to enable LibreOffice to connect to the NAS directly. These are the fiddly things that drive up the frustration and lower the confidence levels. Maybe I've become a grouchy old man who finds learning a chore. I hope not. Geez, I really hope not.

Thank you for reaching out to Linux Support

I want to recommend you do something to solve your problems. Go download Linux Mint and your frustrations are going to be gone. I have none of the problems that you are talking about and it truly does work great.

I have been involved with linux since kernel 2.0.36 (Redhat 4.01) where everything had to be compiled and I spent endless hours compiling to get a decent kernel running and graphics. Those days are gone though. However, There are hundreds of different flavors of linux and they all have their place in specific areas. Many people that I have conversed with have said "Oh, I tried linux and hated it". Then I ask them what flavor they tried and they tell me some obscure flavor that would never fit their needs. Its no wonder they had such an issue. I am not saying Suse is obscure. Its very popular and comes out of Germany. But if you want something similar to windows and need to be productive then your best off running Linux Mint. Of course I preach this all the time and very few listen. They tend to get frustrated a lot and go back to windows. What really gets me is that some will be running Fedora on a production server. I have to just shake my head and walk away.

So, I have given you my advice lets see if you take it and then lets see how things go for you. Report back and let me know.

Recommended: Linux Mint 64bit with Mate Desktop.
https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

coffee

 

[lcoughey]

I have been involved with linux since kernel 2.0.36 (Redhat 4.01) where everything had to be compiled and I spent endless hours compiling to get a decent kernel running and graphics.

Reminds me of when I had forced Red Hat to load on a PowerMac G4 that I had. To boot it, we had to play with the open firmware on the Mac, use a key sequence and start the Linux kernel from a floppy, which would then continue the boot process from the hard drive. I think it took me and another guy two weeks to get it to work. I used it for about 6 months until the floppy disk complete died with a ring etched right through the disk.

 

[Mike McCall]

Thank you for reaching out to Linux Support

Point taken. I should have started a new thread or said nothing. My apologies.

 

[coffee]

Point taken. I should have started a new thread or said nothing. My apologies.

No, Your fine. I am just an avid Linux supporter like you. I believe that life would be so much easier if everyone ran linux. I do not see the use of MS mattering at all in this world.

I understand your frustration believe me. But, I just wanted to point you in the right direction thats all. I just get frustrated sometimes - Its like a customer asks you for a GOOD Computer and you give them a recommendation for one you have in stock and they then have to think about it - and end up at Walmart. lol..

 

[NJW]

My frustrated post came from two-days of trying to accomplish what should be 3 simple tasks

Just to quickly cherry pick, those are simple tasks in Debian (and, by extension, Ubuntu, Mint, ...). Indeed, no intervention at all is required for the Internet (Ethernet; ~70% chance for Wi-Fi, without intervention) and network printer to Just Work.

IMO, both Gnome and KDE have lost their way, which is why I choose xfce (plus, I'm more familiar with it now). I haven't used SuSE since the late 1990s, as I was never impressed with either KDE or rpm package management. I'm installing it now, on a VM, to have another look. First impressions: not friendly. Even the installer lacks an accessible feel.

For easy access to network resources (e.g., LibreOffice to smb shares), set a bookmark. This will be visible in the LibO file chooser. (That's for a GTK desktop – I'll see how it works in KDE.) I agree that it could be better, but it's not enough to offset the disadvantages in Windows!

To find a fix for this (which I shouldn't have to do), I'll have to scour the net ...

No offence, but come off it! We're talking about opening files from LibO (and easy workarounds are readily available). Should we pick a few random posts from Technibble to see what kind of 'simple tasks' are nigh-on impossible in Windows, if you don't happen to know the magic runes?!

Edit to add: Sorry, this post crossed with a few others. I agree with @coffee.

 

[coffee]

Reminds me of when I had forced Red Hat to load on a PowerMac G4 that I had. To boot it, we had to play with the open firmware on the Mac, use a key sequence and start the Linux kernel from a floppy, which would then continue the boot process from the hard drive. I think it took me and another guy two weeks to get it to work. I used it for about 6 months until the floppy disk complete died with a ring etched right through the disk.

Still better than 13 floppies of windows eh? lol!

I got involved in linux because I needed an OS that would run multiple instances of my BBS software at the time - VirtualNET.

 

[Mike McCall]

Just to quickly cherry pick, those are simple tasks in Debian (and, by extension, Ubuntu, Mint, ...). Indeed, no intervention at all is required for the Internet (Ethernet; ~70% chance for Wi-Fi, without intervention) and network printer to Just Work.

IMO, both Gnome and KDE have lost their way, which is why I choose xfce (plus, I'm more familiar with it now). I haven't used SuSE since the late 1990s, as I was never impressed with either KDE or rpm package management. I'm installing it now, on a VM, to have another look. First impressions: not friendly. Even the installer lacks an accessible feel.

So, it's the particular distribution (OpenSUSE) I chose that's the problem? At this point in time that's sad, especially for one that's been around as long as SUSE.

For easy access to network resources (e.g., LibreOffice to smb shares), set a bookmark. This will be visible in the LibO file chooser. (That's for a GTK desktop – I'll see how it works in KDE.) I agree that it could be better, but it's not enough to offset the disadvantages in Windows!

Why should I have to bookmark? Shouldn't LibreOffice be able to see the same devices on the network as the machine itself? To be fair, it may not be a problem with LibreOffice but with something else. Perhaps a quirk in the distro itself given the connection issues I've already had. I agree that Windows has it's own tortures to contend with!

No offence, but come off it! We're talking about opening files from LibO (and easy workarounds are readily available). Should we pick a few random posts from Technibble to see what kind of 'simple tasks' are nigh-on impossible in Windows, if you don't happen to know the magic runes?!

Lol, I hear you. But this also illustrates my point. Because of my unfamiliarity with Linux structure in general when compared to my familiarity with Windows or OS X, I'll have to go and look-up your reference to Lib0 before understanding your reference to easy workarounds. This puts me in the position of being a noob simply because I haven't kept up with Linux. I can deal with that as just the price of not paying attention. Even if all this is due to a lame distribution from a long-time major player, in the end, we're just talking about a simple desktop installation with basic networking capabilities. Things should be much smoother and more sophisticated than this by now.

@coffee made a good suggestion, and I'll take him up on it. Apparently Mint offers a KDE distribution, though he suggests Mate. I don't have to run KDE, but I do want to run Kontact.

 

[coffee]

In linux you do not have to bookmark any share. The only reason you would do that in a file manager such as dulphon, Caja ect... is if you did a network search for a share. Then the FM will automatically bookmark it for you but only until you logout or reboot. The proper way of doing it is to share it out explicitly using NFS or SAMBA thu the config file. No big deal and then its always available.

Make a directory in your home directory. Edit the /etc/exports file on shared computer, mount it on the other computer and add the mount point to your /etc/fstab -done.

 

[Mike McCall]

So, I stripped out OpenSUSE and installed Mint Mate. Much better and everything went smoother. Printer install was straight forward, access to NAS was easy and LibreOffice will see it as long as I mount it first. Really disappointing that OpenSUSE is such a mess. So, I attempt to install Kontact which seems to go smoothly until I try to open it. It just sits there, so I'm still a Dork I guess.

Anyway, I've taken this way off the original topic and I'm sorry for that.

 

[coffee]

So, I stripped out OpenSUSE and installed Mint Mate. Much better and everything went smoother. Printer install was straight forward, access to NAS was easy and LibreOffice will see it as long as I mount it first. Really disappointing that OpenSUSE is such a mess. So, I attempt to install Kontact which seems to go smoothly until I try to open it. It just sits there, so I'm still a Dork I guess.

Anyway, I've taken this way off the original topic and I'm sorry for that.

Lets fork this off in the linux sub and continue. I bet some libraries are not right for Kontact. I will try and install it on my work box here with LM 17.3 rosa on it.

Pick a header subject for the thread and let me know. I will join you

**** Just tried to load up Kontact and it seems hosed because some libraries are not compiled correctly for it. No wonder as I am running the Mate Desktop not KDE. Your mileage may vary

 

[Markverhyden]

A couple of observations:

• Pick a distro (or, at least, a genealogical line) and stick to it;
• Don't try to 'learn it' – use it and learn stuff as you need it.

I started with Slackware – it was free, on a set of floppies, from a magazine about 20 years ago (gulp) – and I stumbled in the dark for a month or so then gave up. Over the next few years I dallied with them all, mainstream and niche, but never got beyond 'novelty' installations.

LOL!!! I still remember those days. Slack was the first I tried as well. I was taking a Unix Sysadmin course at a local University for a career change and was looking for something free. Having had been in a DEC ecosystem I was aware of Unix. Minix was around but Linux was just starting to get popular. I remember using my AOL account to download the floppy sets. A for the core, N for networking etc. Loaded on a Compaq Prolinea 3/25 (386SX/25). Took me almost a month to get X-Windows running.

And being a *nix made a difference in performance. Connecting to a dialup ISP my Linux ran close to advertised speeds while W 3.1/95 and OS 7 were close to half of that speed.

 

[NJW]

In linux you do not have to bookmark any share.

I agree. However, the LibreOffice file chooser is unaware of networking (file and print operations are a bit weird in LibO, due, I think, to the way it's written for cross-platform).

Several reasons for suggesting a bookmark, such as:
- userland setting: no need for fstab edits;
- doesn't matter if the share isn't available at boot;
- samba shared home directories are not (by default) browsable so must be mounted at boot (fstab) or bookmarked (though smb://<location>/<sharename>/ will usually work, but not in LibO in KDE).

LibO is worse in KDE than in GTK environments.

This puts me in the position of being a noob simply because I haven't kept up with Linux.

Consider going directly from Windows 3.1 to Windows 10. An easy transition or a complete restart? There's nothing wrong with openSUSE that a bit of familiarity wouldn't fix. The main reason for your printer and NAS woes were that the firewall is very restrictive and is enabled by default. I didn't have any trouble getting (automatically) an Ethernet connection up.

I'm off to the other thread ...

 

[ZenTree]

Lets fork this off in the linux sub and continue. I bet some libraries are not right for Kontact. I will try and install it on my work box here with LM 17.3 rosa on it.

Pick a header subject for the thread and let me know. I will join you

**** Just tried to load up Kontact and it seems hosed because some libraries are not compiled correctly for it. No wonder as I am running the Mate Desktop not KDE. Your mileage may vary

One thing I have found is that the linux forums I have checked when trying to diagnose an issue are far more aggressive and intolerant of "noobs" than other forums I have seen. Glad to see Technibblers bucking the trend again